


Or Something

by MadCatta



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Dean Hates Christmas, Destiel Advent Calendar 2014, F/M, Human AU, M/M, Teacher!Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-16
Updated: 2014-12-16
Packaged: 2018-03-01 19:15:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,137
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2784575
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadCatta/pseuds/MadCatta
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Despite his friends' best efforts, Dean doesn't like Christmas. Not for any good reason, he just kind of thinks it's dumb. If only his friends would see it like that. </p>
<p>And there's a face from his past that won't stop haunting him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Or Something

**Eleven days to Winter Break**

Dean’s in the throes of a nightmare when an ambulance races past his house, the blaring siren jolting him back to consciousness. Dean sits bolt upright, breathing hard and sweat pouring off him and his first instinct is to ask for Mom.

Dean’s in his thirties. Mom doesn’t come running in because he hasn’t lived with her in ten years. He drops his left hand from his face and down onto the left side of the bed, patting it.

Patting the empty side of the bed.

He and his fiancée Lisa broke up nearly six months ago now, but he still misses her like a missing limb.

Dean gets up, shivering in his sweat and boxer shorts, and washes his face in the bathroom sink. He’s had horrible nightmares for as long as he can remember – but he doesn’t actually remember what’s in the nightmares. He only remembers the fear in them. Already, Dean feels the dream slip away and the need to know what happened makes it slip even faster. And, like a wet hand grasping for slippery soap, the dream slides away without a trace.

Dean’s far too old to get nightmares. He looks at his face in the mirror, at the dashes of gray around his temples, the crow’s feet at the creases of his eyes. Freezing cold, he heads back into his lonely room and turns on the TV. It fills the room with holly-jolly Christmas music, much too garish for his current mood.

Dean’s an English teacher, and he thinks he’s a fairly well liked one. He has this discussion group at the high school he works at, much to the amusement of his baby brother. After his sophomore class finishes up and he’s pulled one of the kids back to see how things are going – divorcing parents, girl was falling asleep through all of the lesson – and over her shoulder he sees his discussion group starting to line up outside, chatting amongst themselves. It doesn’t officially start for another ten minutes but they like to come in early – Dean takes that as a sign they actually like him. He claps a hand on the girl’s shoulder as she leaves, cursing himself as she does so. He’s a tactile person and now people are getting uppity about any form of physical contact between pupils and teachers – rightly so – but it slips his mind every now and then.

The teenagers slip in, from all grades of the school, a variety of ethnic and socio-economic backgrounds, all with their own ideas of how the world works. When Dean first started doing this group, Dean had taken a more active role. He did lots of his own presentations and steered the conversation how he thought it should go and picked people out for their thoughts. And then, as they gathered confidence and an understanding of how this could go, he’d sat back and acted chairperson. Sure, every now and again he does his own presentation – Led Zep was his last big hit – but mostly he lets them work it out between themselves. It’s Dean’s favorite part of the week, listening to all these kids argue passionately, presenting the things they love.

It’s dreams this time. Why they happen, how they happen, if they do actually have a deeper meaning. Dean’s own opinion is that dreams can be absolutely interpreted to mean something about your life – when he remembers his, he can see how they relate to the day he’s had or to his mental state. It doesn’t apply to his nightmares but maybe he’s just fucking weird.

“Yo, Mister W,” loud mouthed Jake yells at him, interrupting his musing.

“Volume, Jake,” Dean reprimands.

“Sorry, sir,” Jake grins. “But you know the rules! No zoning out, you gotta pay close attention.”

Dean scrubs a hand over his mouth and smiles at the group. “You’re right. That was rude, I’m sorry.”

His group doesn’t care. They just love that Jake told him off.

He’s always kind of out of it after a nightmare. Once Dean pays more attention to the group, the time passes quickly and before he knows it there’s five minutes left of lunch. Dean whistles to get their attention. “That’s time for today, thank you Ava for the awesome presentation. Next week is the last of this semester so I’ll be doing the presentation – and don’t bother bringing lunch,” he grins at them.

Aiden tries to high five him as he leaves. He fails, as always.

Dean leaves the school at nearly seven, caught up in so much marking and meetings and helping his fellow teachers. It surprises everyone that he teaches English – Dean takes it as a compliment – but Vonnegut was his saviour growing up. And he loves teaching. To some kids, English is their saving grace.

Dean had always hated school, figured he was dumb because he sucked at math but slowly Mom and Dad realised how much effort Dean had to put in for the simplest calculus and they theorised he had dyscalculia. And the school gave him some help and with the support of his nicer teachers, things went surprisingly well.

At home, in his empty house, Dean heats up a pizza and has a beer and tries to watch crappy TV but gives up quickly and goes to his closest bar. He’s not disappointed when he gets the the bar. The normal bunch are there – Bobby, the old drunk, sitting with his friend Rufus. Ellen, the landlady. And a couple others he knows pretty well.

Dean raises a hand to Bobby when he goes in, orders a double scotch from Ellen and sits at the bar wearing his dad’s old leather jacket. Bobby comes over to greet him. “Hey, kid,” he says, voice muffled by his beard. “Rough day?”

“Yeah,” Dean lies, unwilling to share his problems. Bobby’s a good guy but the nightmares aren’t something he tells just anyone about. Even Mom doesn’t know he still gets them. Lisa knew, of course. How could she know? She was always great with his nightmares, had a kid of her own so could do the whole Mommy comfort thing with a touch of sexy girlfriend love. Unsurprisingly, it’s not something he’s felt very often. Dean misses Lisa like hell.

Ellen gives him a sympathetic smile. “You’ll find it easier soon,” she tells him and Bobby nods his head. “Give it some time.”

‘Course both of them have been married and lost their partners to death. He and Lisa just fell apart.

He misses Ben, too. Kid’s nearly ten and in a couple of years he’ll be going to the high school Dean teaches at, probably.

Dean’s regretting his choice of bar. He wishes he had gone to a different one where the people who know him know him for picking up a lot of single people. Although, the dream weighs heavily on him now, more so in the dark of the bar than the light of day, and being wrapped up in someone’s unknown arms doesn’t appeal now he gives it some thought.

Ellen goes to refill his glass but Dean puts a hand over it. “Actually Ellen, I should probably get home. Got some marking to do.”

Ellen nods. “Take care.”

Ellen and Bobby are kind of Dean’s surrogate parents now he’s living away from home. Not that as a thirty something he should really need his parents that close to him, but Dean’s a momma’s boy and stupidly close to his Dad. When the school semester is over he’s going to stay with them for a week. Dean can’t wait.

He groans, loud in his quiet house. He drinks enough to get sleepy and to fall asleep on the couch but wakes up not longer later from another nightmare. They’re getting worse, he thinks glumly, and calls Sam.

**Ten days to Winter Break**

Dean drops his change on the floor in the coffee shop near school. A man near him picks up a couple of rolling dimes and gives them to him, a man who looks as bad as Dean feels with his messy hair and deep bags. Dean nods his thanks because words are too much at this time in the morning.

Donna Hanscum, math teacher, walks down the corridor whistling in her reindeer antlers. Dean pulls a face of disgust.

“Oy, Scrooge,” she grins good-naturedly, coming up to him and planting a kiss on his cheek. “Nothin’ wrong with some good ol’ Christmas cheer.”

“And you’re doing that for the whole school?”

“You betcha,” and off she walks, whistling merrily.

Dean tries to fight off the grin that erupts over his face and fails miserably.

The rest of the day passes with no problems. Mom calls during a lesson and Dean had forgotten to put his phone on silent. _Smoke on the Water_ thumps through the class until Dean, face red, gets to his desk to switch it off. “It was my mom,” he tells the class with a grin and they all laugh at him. He scribbles a note on a Post-It and sticks it to his computer monitor – _call mom bck asap –_ and gets on with the lesson.

When he gets home he finds tinsel wrapped around his post box. Dean looks at it, frowns, and looks around to see if any others have tinsel on them. They don’t.

**Nine days to winter break**

There’s a face in his dreams that he recognises. Someone he knew back in college – what was his name?

Dean forgets about him after his coffee. Mom calls again, again during a lesson. Dean forgets to put his phone on silent – again – and after his phone goes off one of his student’s phone goes off. Dean looks at him and rolls his eyes. “Call it quits?”

Yeah, the kids think he’s pretty cool, all right. But that doesn’t mean they act well for him. Dean can raise his voice pretty well and does the whole scary yelling thing perfectly, so he can wrestle control back pretty easily when he wants. Dean sits back on his comfy spinny chair and looks at his monitor, at the post it note he ignored from the moment he’d stuck it up there. Dean frowns. The note isn’t what he remembers.

There’s a rough drawing of some holly and a great Merry Christmas in pretty, swirling writing.

Donna, probably. He’ll get her back, spike her coffee or something.

With salt rather than sugar, obviously. Like he’d be unprofessional enough to bring in alcohol to school.

Donna spits the coffee straight out onto the table, to the amusement of the other teachers. “What the Bing Crosby was that for?”

“Quit it,” Dean grouches, taking a sip of his own (disgusting but at least not salty) coffee. “I don’t love Christmas and I have no desire to love it.” He smirks, and adds, “’I have seen birth and death but had thought they were different; this birth was hard and bitter agony for us. Like death, our death.’”

“Oy, don’t you be quoting at me,” she slaps his knee. “Christmas ain’t that bad.”

Dean’s resolved not to like it. In the staff meeting all of them are as grouchy as usual. Charlie, who teaches ICT, wears a Christmas jumper and a frown. “I could be with Gilda, cocoa, brownies…” she pulls a face. “Rather than listening to this shit.”

Dean nods. “I could be napping…”

“Wanna get a drink afterwards?”

“Sounds good.”

He has to go to the ATM before they get into the bar. Dean tells his friends to go on in as there’s a queue and it’s cold as fuck out there. He blows on his hands to warm them up, wishing he had brought gloves or a hat or a scarf. Hell, he doesn’t even have a proper winter coat. He’s got this teacherish overcoat that would make Sammy proud but it doesn’t keep him all that warm.

The man in front of him takes ages at the ATM. Dean turns around, blowing on his hands, and someone crashes into him from behind. Dean stumbles, looking around, but all he sees is the back of a trench coat. Dean swears to himself and hops from foot to foot, and finally the man finishes an heads off.

Dean’s been ordered a Christmas special cocktail. It sits with holly and an umbrella poking out, his colleagues smirking. Dean undoes his tie and lets it drape either side of his collar, undoes a couple of shirt buttons and drinks down half the cocktail in one. It’s strong but so is he, doing his best not to cough as it burns down. Dean gets a beer after, crashing the bottom of it onto the top of his friend Victor’s beer. The foam rises in Victor’s bottle and Victor has to race to lick it up. “Ass,” Victor grins at him.

**Eight days to Winter Break**

Friday excitement runs through all the kids’ blood. Dean’s almost feeling it, because he’s meeting up with Sam and his girlfriend Sarah in the evening, but then a fight breaks out in his freshman class. A proper fight, almost throwing punches, but then Dean gets between the two and orders them both outside. He has Victor, one class over teaching history, keep an eye on his class as he takes his two fighting boys to see the principle.

Principle Naomi Smith likes to handle the seriously disruptive students herself. She’s a good principle, if scary as fuck. Naomi sits back in her leather seat with her hair pulled back tight, careful makeup and fitted pantsuit. The epitome of professionalism.

When Dean gets back his screensaver has been changed to a pug dog in a Christmas hat and his class are looking innocently at him. “Get on with your work,” he grumbles, and takes a peek at his phone. Two missed calls from Mom. He writes it on his arm this time to _call mom asap._

He calls Mom at lunch and they chat about the past few days and how things have been going, and then Mom tells him Ben’s been calling her.

Guilt hits Dean like a punch in the stomach. He’s been ignoring the kid since he and Lisa ended. “What did he say?”

“ _He misses you. Said you mentioned going to the movies with him but it hasn’t happened yet,”_ says Mom, voice laden with disapproval.

Dean swallows. “Ah, shit. I meant to arrange something but…”

_“You forgot?”_ Mom’s not impressed.

“I’ll fix it,” he promises her.

_“Good,”_ says Mom, her voice lightening. _“When are you home again, sweetie?”_

“The nineteenth, Mom,” he rolls his eyes.

Next Dean calls Lisa. It’s painful talking to her and he thinks – hopes – he hears similar pain in her voice but can’t be sure. “Any plans for the weekend, Lees?”

Lisa sighs. She sounds tired. _“A hundred yoga classes and then my friends want to go out Saturday, but then I need a sitter…”_

“Maybe I could take Ben,” Dean offers quickly. “Go to the movies, like I said I’d take him.” He can hear the cogs working in her brain. “Ben deserves that much. It was a dick move, promising him like that and then…”

_“Yeah, okay,”_ she says. _“Ben would love it. I’ll ask him what he thinks. I’ll call you later.”_

Relief, so strong that tears prickle in Dean’s eyes. “Thanks, Lees.”

And suddenly the day is better. It snows in the evening when Dean’s walking to the store from his car but he remembered a hat this time. It’s thick, it’s woollen, it has a bobble on the end and it was given to him by his mom, but it’s warm.

And then he catches sight of a man walking in the cold, wearing a shirt and pants and that’s pretty much it. . Everyone else is in thick, winterwear – Dean himself has five layers on, and then a hat and a scarf and even gloves stuffed deep in his pocket.

The guy’s fingers are white. He’s shivering, almost without realising it, snow caught in his black hair.

_God._ But Dean dug through his house for the nicest hat, gloves and scarf he could find. He has plenty of each, and this guy looks like he doesn’t even know how cold he is. God, he’s gonna do it. “Hey, dude,” Dean croaks, and the guy stops. The snow’s settled and melted on his shirt, which is turning see through and sticking to him. Dean unwinds the scarf from his neck and pulls off the hat and digs around for the gloves. “Take these,” he thrusts the warm clothing into the guy’s hands.

The man frowns and looks down at them, and then up at Dean again. Dean can’t work out what he’s thinking but it’s snowing heavier now, a cold wind blowing. “You look freezing. Go put them on…” and then Dean looks again at his shoulders, visible through the shirt and is he really doing this?

Dean’s jacket comes off, he pulls off a nice, soft, thick jumper he owns and loves, and hands it to the guy. “Hey, try not to freeze, okay,” Dean advises. The man still doesn’t say anything but he pulls on the jumper, frowning as he feels the warmth.

Right. Dean nods and turns away towards the store but then the man speaks in a rough voice. “Thank you.”

“Yeah, don’t mention it.”

His charity even extends to buying Sarah and Sam a drink at the bar later. He finds himself talking about the guy wandering the parking lot without anything warm on, looking kind of fucked up.

“Getting into the Christmas spirit with all this charity?” asks Sarah, raising a thin eyebrow.

“Strange concept for you art chicks, huh?” Dean teases.

“Shut the fuck up,” she says sweetly.

“I’m taking Ben out tomorrow,” he tells them. Lisa confirmed via text a few hours back, said Ben was excited by the whole thing.

“Yeah?” Sam’s face brightens. “That’s great, Dean. Where are you going?”

“Get some food, see a movie.” Dean shrugs. “Or whatever Ben once. I promised I’d take him out but then things got in the way…” he wipes a hand over his mouth. “So, yeah.”

“Good for you,” they say in unison, laugh and kiss. Dean grins at them, at their happiness together, and then grins again noticing Sarah’s ears for the first time. “What the fuck are those?”

“The height of fashion,” Sarah counters, playing with the oversized Santas with bells on she has as earrings.

“They’re cute,” says Sam, tinkling one of the bells.

“Christmas consumerism,” Dean scoffs into his beer.

Sarah groans and Sam reaches for the peanuts on the bar and throws a handful at Dean. “Get away with your Christmas cynicism,” says Sam. “Deep down, you love Christmas and we both know it.”

“Bah, humbug,” Dean smirks.

Sam throws more peanuts at him.

**Seven days to Winter Break**

Dean wakes himself up with a hell, sweaty and shaky as per usual after a nightmare – but this was different. He still can’t remember the worst part of the nightmare but he was falling back into darkness. And there was something else but it was different this time. Something else was going on.

Dean breathes in deeply and out slowly, staring up at his ceiling. There’s a sick feeling in his stomach because not once in all his years of having nightmares has he felt something good.

Something like – comfort?

It’s three AM. Coffee wouldn’t help him in the slightest but he wants it. He rifles through his cupboards and finds some hippy tea Lisa liked. Dean boils the kettle and makes a cup of it and takes an experimental sip, having always refused to try it out of principle.

It tastes like grass.

All of this is just nerves, he’s pretty sure. Nerves and excitement; it’s been a while since he last saw Ben and now they’ve got the whole day together. A whole day to go to the park, collapse in front of the TV, get some fast food and go see a movie. And Dean really doesn’t want to meet him half asleep and dead to the world, he wants to be awake and relaxed.

Dean wants to talk to Dad. He goes upstairs with his tea and sits on his bed, phone in his hand.

And even though it’s the middle of the night, Dad answers the phone. Dean’s caught off guard by Dad’s rough voice. “ _Dean_?”

“Dad?”

Dad exhales softly with amusement. “ _You called me, Deano.”_

“Right, yeah,” he swallows, clutching the phone hard.

_“What’s on your mind, son?”_

Dean shrugs, though Dad can’t see him. “Seeing Ben tomorrow. Today, whatever. Whole day with him.”

_“That’s good, hey?”_

“Awesome, yeah,” Dean bites his lip.

Dad sighs and clears his throat. _“He loves you, Dean. He’s a good kid, don’t disappear from his life.”_

“I’m trying not to,” Dean protests.

_“Yeah? When was the last time you spoke to him?”_

Dad’s right. Dad’s always right. “What about you, old man? What’s got you up all night?”

_“Watch it,”_ Dad admonishes. _“Your mom was keeping me up. Some sixth sense, sensing trouble in the offspring.”_

“Passed that on to you, huh?” Dad’s two hours ahead in Kansas. “Or did you have to get up early to piss, old timer?”

Dad snorts on the other end. _“Anything else you wanna throw at me?”_

“Yeah. You’re old, old man.”

Dad full on laughs this time. _“Get some sleep, Dean. Unless there’s anything else?”_

Dean chews on his lip. “I don’t know.”

_“You’re a good dad to that kid, Dean. Just make sure you’re there for him. Better he’s sick of the sight of you than thinking you ain’t got time for him,”_ Dad says.

Dean covers his mouth with his hand. “Thanks, Dad. G’night.”

_“Night, son.”_

Lisa drops Ben off in the morning. Dean’s half dressed and has a slice of toast in his mouth when the doorbell rings. He goes to it and pulls it open, drawing his almost-kid into his arms before releasing him and kissing Lisa on her cheek.

Lisa pulls a face and wipes it. “You’ve got crumbs on my cheek!”

Dean swallows his toast. “Sorry.”

Lisa shakes her head at him. “Have a good day, boys,” and she kisses Ben’s head and goes back to her car.

Ben and Dean wave her off. “What do you wanna do first?” he asks Ben, closing the door.

Ben grins up at him. “I want you to put some pants on.”

Fair enough. They spend most of the morning in the house playing card games and old board games, drinking hot chocolate and catching up on each other’s lives. They go to the car after lunch and Dean stops and stares at it. On top of his sleek, gorgeous, elegant ’67 Chevy Impala, there’s a small Santa hat. Ben laughs and reaches up to pick it off, putting it on his own head.

“You do that?” Dean asks him, frowning.

“No!”

“Your mom?”

“No! It wasn’t either of us, Dean.”

Dean frowns harder but shrugs, shepherding Ben into the back seat and ignoring his loud protests. It starts to snow again but it doesn’t settle this time, and Ben stares out of the window with wonder in his eyes. “Dude, look at all that snow!”

Dean grins at him in the rearview mirror.

He almost runs over a man as he reverses into a parking space but they manage to get into the movie theatre without any real problems. It’s one of those dumb family Christmas movies the companies roll out to get that little bit richer, but Ben enjoys it and that’s all that matters. Dean finds a diner to get burgers at after the movie. “What are you getting me for Christmas?” Ben asks, digging into his chips.

“It’s a surprise,” Dean replies.

“How many surprises?”

Dean takes a bite of his burger. “Shut up and eat your food.”

Ben sticks his tongue out at him.

Dean’s tired by the end of dinner, it’s been a long day for him, but Ben’s clamouring to go back to Dean’s house and stay there for longer. “Kid, come on,” Dean says, meeting Ben’s eyes in the rear view mirror. Ben’s folded his arms over his chest and sticking out a bottom lip. “Thought you were telling me how grown up you are.”

Ben turns and looks out of the window.

“Aw, don’t give me that, Ben.” Dean turns up the radio, where AC/DC are playing, Ben’s current favourite band.

“When are you gonna see me next?” Ben asks in a quiet voice, still looking out of the window.

“Next week,” Dean says.

“You promise?”

“Promise,” Dean meets his eyes in the rear view mirror again. Ben uncrosses his arms, somewhat mollified. He hugs Dean tight when they get out the car and walk up to Ben and Lisa’s new house. Lisa opens the door and kisses Dean’s cheek, and Ben hugs him once more as they part.

**Six days to Winter Break**

Dean spends half the day marking papers and writing lesson plans and the other half is spent sleeping. What else are Sundays for?

**Five days to Winter Break**

_“I don’t want a lot for Christmas, there is just one thing I need…”_

Dean frowns at the CD player. The last time it was played was sometime last week and Dean’s pretty sure it was Zeppelin and not Mariah Carey. He turns to his homeroom class, miming gagging. “Okay, who’s the comedian?” he says, pressing eject on the player.

No one owns up to it.

**Four days to Winter Break**

To the discussion group, as promised, Dean brings a huge array of junk food and even some healthy stuff, laying it out over the table with bottles of soda and water.

“Aw, no alcohol?” Krissy asks. “Thought you’d at least spring for a beer or two, Mr Winchester.”

“Yeah, in your dreams, Krissy.”

Aiden and Jake try to fit as many cupcakes in their mouths at once – one and a half, like, that’s not even impressive – and Dean tries to commandeer a whole pie to himself.

“Now, Mister W,” Aiden shakes his head in a pissing annoying manner. “What would the to-be-Missus say about that?”

Silence follows his statement, Dean’s face falling at the (unfair) reminder of his broken relationship.

“Aiden!” Josephine hits him over the head with her hand, muttering something in his ear.

“It’s cool,” Dean shakes off the apologies. “Couple of months back… Perfect time to find someone new, huh?”

“She doesn’t know what she’s missing, Mister W,” Krissy beams at him.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean smirks. “I’m still not buying y’all alcohol.”

They’re a good bunch. Dean’s gonna miss the older ones when they leave, but there’ll be another crowd moving on it. And one day, if Dean’s lucky, Ben will come up to this school, and he’ll get to keep an eye on his surrogate son.

He still doesn’t know if Ben is his. Dean acts like it doesn’t make a difference – because he wouldn’t treat Ben any different – but it changes something. It matters.

Dean gets home from work late as he’s had to monitor detention and then get on with work after that because he rarely gets any work done in detention. That’s because if he knows a kid in detention he defies the no talking rule and checks in with them, why they’re in detention and is there anything they need help with. Every once in a while, it works.

And when he gets home there’s a Christmas tree in the middle of his living room. . A huge Christmas tree, decorated with lights and baubles and – fuck, is that a Starfleet decoration? Dean looks closer at the tree, and sure enough, half the decorations are geeky as fuck. A death star, light saber poking out from the other side. Batman. Ironman. Serenity. Baubles made of Lego.

Fuck, this tree is… kind of incredible. There’s even chocolate ornaments, like Mom loved to put up and Dean would dare Sam to steal one, and Mom always knew. She counted them, where Sam’s neatness freakiness comes from. But Mom’s not here to stop him this time, and Dean picks the nearest one off the tree and pops it into his mouth, cheap chocolate melting on his tongue.

**Three days to winter break**

Falling, falling, falling… Dean’s sweaty and screaming and falling, falling into the depths of hell, his worst nightmare – and then he stops falling and there’s light, so bright Dean can’t see, and he’s being pulled up and Dean sees a face, tired and strong and illuminated by light, so beautiful Dean can’t breathe.

No, he actually can’t breathe. Dean sits up in bed, sweat pouring off him. Saved… he was saved.

Dean shakes his head and wipes his face with his hands, throwing the sheets off him and padding to the bathroom to wash his face. It’s cold; he shivers in his boxers and gets back to bed.

The same man in his dream last week. The guy he’d had a giant thing for in college. It’s him, it’s definitely him.

They’d kissed once at a party and Dean had freaked out and avoided him ever since.

Dean’s always regretted that.

Wednesday’s suck balls. Middle of the week, his students are all excited by the prospect of Christmas coming up, no one wants to focus and they’re all begging for a Christmas themed class. Hah.

Dean gives them the usual work, tells them they’re lucky he’s not loading up homework for them.

“That’s so gay,” he hears muttered from someone in the class. Dean pricks up his ears – one time he pulled a kid out for professing something as gay when it turns out he was commenting on his lesbian friend’s date.

“Can’t believe old Martins giving us all that homework, it sucks,” he hears from the same voice.

“Hey, Luke,” Dean says cooly, face stern. “What did you just say?”

Luke lifts his head up, flushing quickly. “Uh – nothin’, sir,” he mutters.

“No, no, what was it?”

Luke blushes harder. “Just got more homework than expected,” he shrugs.

“Yeah, and what did you say that was?”

Luke looks away. “Uh.” He swallows heavily, but Dean keeps pressing.

“No, go on, what was it?”

“I said it was gay, sir,” Luke says quickly.

Dean leans back against his table. “Yeah, I thought that’s what you said. So the fact that you didn’t want that homework, you wanna say it sucked. Gay, you know. All bad and wrong and nasty. Am I right?”

“No, sir,” Luke mutters.

“Why don’t you call it girly? Lame, retarded, black… Dehumanise an entire group of people with just one word.”

Luke bites on his lip. “I didn’t mean it like that…”

“Most of the world does,” Dean tells him. “People get killed for liking the same gender as them and you think it’s appropriate to express disgust by using the word gay?”

“No, sir.”

“Good,” says Dean, pushing off the table and going back to his seat. “Back to your work.”

**Two days to Winter Break**

Dean catches Charlie sneaking out of his classroom as he rounds the corner but she doesn’t see him.

His classroom is like a paper chain explosion. His monitor is lined with tinsel, there’s snowflakes dangling in the window, Christmas music playing loudly.

So it’s his friends, desperate to give him Christmas cheer. As he’d suspected.

Dean gets Charlie back. During a break between classes, Dean goes into her empty classroom and shuts the door behind him. A roll of gaffa tape has all of Charlie’s personal possessions on the ceiling, he prises some keys off her keyboard and switches them around randomly, and finally he replaces Charlie’s stapler and hole punch and her whiteboard pens with his own.

The ones he’d set in jell-o earlier that morning.

It’s nothing compared to the prank wars he and Sam had as kids, but the professionalism required in his workplace puts a stop to his favourite ideas. Anyway. A good prank needs a while to set up and Dean’s only had a couple of hours.

“You ass,” Charlie says as soon as he enters the staffroom.

“Serves you right,” says Dean. “I don’t want to like Christmas.”

“Scrooge.”

Dean sits down on the couch by Victor, who’s grinning inanely at him. “Just trying to get you into the Christmas spirit, buddy.”

“It’s winter break, not Christmas break,” Dean protests.

But the Christmas tree in the middle of the staffroom says otherwise.

And it reminds him. “Hey, which of you fucks broke into my place yesterday?” he asks, scowling.

Charlie grins at him. “Sam did it,” she says brightly.

“Of course he did.”

Dean goes out in order to pull that night, flirting with everyone he sees and getting probably a bit too drunk for a school night. He stumbles over a chair and lands in the arms of a man with black hair and blue eyes and rather falls in love, but Dean tries to ask him back to his place and he slurs just that bit too much, and the bartender pulls him aside to call Dean a cab.

**One day to Winter Break**

The last day of semester. Dean braces himself as he opens the door to his classroom, expecting a giant snowman or Santa himself to be in there but there’s nothing.

No, that’s not right. Dean crosses the room and sits at his desk. His desk is covered in pink Post-Its all with Jackass written on them. Dean grins, peeling as many off as he needs to and throwing them in recycling.

Victor comes in during Dean’s second class, claiming boredom, and sits in Dean’s comfortable chair with a Santa hat on his head.

Halfway through the class, a paper airplane butts into his head. Victor whistles innocently from his seat in the corner as Dean looks around for the culprit. God, Dean hates his friends.

A spitball hits his forehead. Dean looks over at Victor and he doesn’t even pretend to hide the straw in his hand. “I give up!” Dean crosses his arms over his chest. “What do you want?”

Victor grin and stands up. “Just for some holiday cheer, Mister Grinch.”

Dean’s so close to flipping him off but the class are watching raptly and damnit he can keep professional. Victor produces another Santa’s hat from his coat pocket and delicately places it on Dean’s head. “Just for the rest of the lesson.”

_God._

And finally it’s the end of school, hordes of teenagers running rampant through the corridors in their zeal to get out of school. He joins Donna and Charlie in waving off the students in the parking lot and – oh God, they’re wearing elf hats.

“I have a gift for you,” grins Charlie and pulls out another elf hat.

“No.”

“Aw, come on,” Donna wheedles.

“No.”

“Aw, please,” cries Charlie.

Dean makes a noise of disgust in the back of his throat and turns away and in doing so, he catches sight of someone. Dean takes a step towards the person and waves vaguely at Charlie and Donna. “I’ll be back.”

Messy dark hair, bright blue eyes, trench coat.

“It’s you,” Dean breathes.

The man smiles. His face is older and more worn, but very much the one that got away. Cas. “Hello, Dean.”

Dean’s head is reeling. “I nearly hit you with my car.”

“I hoped it wasn’t intentional.” God, Cas’s voice is this low gravelling bass tone that goes right to Dean’s groin.

“It wasn’t.” Dean’s mouth is so dry. And then he remembers something else – “Fuck, I invited you home with me, didn’t I?”

“In the bar, yes,” Cas smirks. “You were very inebriated. I thought it best to wait until you weren’t intoxicated. I believe I owe you for the winter clothing you gave to me.”

Dean blinks. “I – that was you?”

“I was very grateful,” Cas tells him. “I had had a ‘rough day’.”

“Yeah, no shit.” Dean licks his lips. “Uh – so – uh –“

“I’m not here from chance,” Cas says. “When I saw you in the coffee shop, I thought it was you, but you didn’t appear to recognise me. I’ve just moved into the area.”

“Coincidence.”

“But a good one,” Cas says solemnly.

Dean grins. “Yeah, sure.”

Cas tilts his head to the side. “Perhaps we could go and get coffee or something?”

“Or something,” says Dean, and plants his hands on Cas’s cheeks and kisses him.

He hears Donna and Charlie whooping behind him and Dean reluctantly pulls away. Cas’s eyes are wide, his hands close to Dean’s hips.

“Or something,” Cas repeats and kisses Dean again.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Destiel Advent Calendar 2014. 
> 
>  
> 
> [ Find me on tumblr!](http://floralchesters.tumblr.com/)
> 
>  
> 
> \- xx Cait


End file.
